Aaron Gwin Talks the Prototype Intense DH Bike 11

Product / Technical
We caught up with Aaron Gwin at the Tennessee National downhill mountain bike race to discuss the new Intense prototype DH bike he and the IFR team just started running. It's a high-pivot alloy suspension design with 29-inch front wheel and 27.5-inch rear. Aaron talks about the past few years and his struggles with the previous prototype and how they came to develop this new bike. At this point, he was not discussing specifics about suspension kinematics or geometry. #MTB #DH #downhill
Credit: gordo
supplemental video by Intense Cycles
supplemental photos by Sven Martin, Boris Beyer, Jack Rice
Related:
Intense
Aaron Gwin
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup
Downhill
Product / Technical
11 comments

View replies to: Aaron Gwin Talks the Prototype Intense DH Bike

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bizutch
2 years ago
I don't think they're hiding them...Gwin just talked about what came to mind or what was specifically asked. Not giving an answer isn't avoiding the question if you've got other things you want to address that you feel are more important to get out there.
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Roots_rider
2 years ago
I read the description before listening. Sounded more like “I can’t discuss” as he may not know the specifics well enough to go into details, vs not being allowed to. The bike industry loves to act all secretive about a lot of stuff. When in reality it seems many are rounding out to same concept. Leverage rate starting a bit over 3.0 and having about 30-35% progressivity, while minimizing pedal feedback via pulley or o chain. I will say props to JS for the wheel rate/force matching though. My graph is most likely slightly off, with some tweaking they line up pretty much dead on. So tuning this new bike should be pretty simple for them. Bonus of the large and funky looking rocker.
The commencal is a bit of a trip. Can’t even draw it up in linkage. It’s a blend of 6 bar and linkage driven 4 bar. Basically dw where the lower link drives a rocker via the connecting rod.
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bizutch
2 years ago
Honestly I think the thing I want to see is for Gwin to be on the Ohlins tuning team. I know he's married to Fox, but would love to see them really get tech with him in the same way they have with Bruno & Finn.

It always almost sounds like Fox can't talk him away from his specific setup. Would be fascinating to see Ohlins sit down with him and really go deep on suspension tuning over a full season.
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Matt891
2 years ago
Perhaps a bit of insight to why neko switched it up and went to the old carbon 29er at the end of the season.
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creativefletch
2 years ago
Awesome interview. Nice wok sspomer, really cool to hear straight from Aaron a raw explanation of the journey.
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Ahab
2 years ago
Really interesting to see where this all goes with these Intense bikes and Neko's Frameworks. They seem to be going in opposite directions to achieve the same goals.
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Ahab
2 years ago
Meanwhile, Commencal's all SIX BARS. SIX OF 'EM. ZUT ALORS
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